Four Women Faculty Members Honored With Major Awards

Myria Allen, professor of communication at the University of Arkansas, received the Christine L. Oravec Research Award in Environmental Communication from the National Communication Association. Professor Allen was honored for her book Strategic Communication for Sustainable Organizations: Theory and Practice (Springer, 2015).

Professor Allen has been on the faculty at the University of Arkansas since 1993. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Kentucky.

Roberta Fiske-Rusciano, an assistant professor in global studies and political science at Rider University in Lawrenceville, New Jersey, has been selected to receive the Deborah Gerner Innovative Teaching in International Studies Award from the International Studies Association. Dr. Fiske-Rusciano will be honored at the association’s annual meeting in Atlanta this coming March.

Dr. Fiske-Rusciano holds a master’s degree from the University of Chicago and a Ph.D. in anthropology from Rutgers University.

Maria Elena Bottazzi, professor of pediatrics and associate dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor University College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, received the 2015 Jose Cecillo del Valle National Science Award from the government of Honduras. She was honored for her work in public health and the prevention of disease through vaccines.

Dr. Bottazzi is the editor-in-chief of the journal Current Tropical Medicine Reports. She is a graduate of the National Autonomous University of Honduras, where she majored in clinical chemistry and microbiology. Dr. Bottazzi earned her doctorate at the University of Florida.

Rene Gifford, associate professor of hearing and speech sciences at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, received the 2015 Louis M. DiCarlo Award for Recent Clinical Achievement from the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. She was honored for her work that has “significantly changed and improved the field of cochlear implants.”

Dr. Gifford joined the Vanderbilt faculty in 2011. She holds a bachelor’s degree and a Ph.D. in psychoacoustics from Arizona State University and a master’s degree from Vanderbilt.